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Description: signed: BARYE , and stamped: BARYE with an old label on the underside of the base inscribed: Collection Georges [Lutz] bronze, dark brown patina, on a stone base

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Dimensions: measurements note bronze: 33 by 25.5cm., 13 by 10in.

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Provenance: The Georges Lutz Collection;
The Eduardo Guinle Collection;
Sold Christies New York, 25th April 2003, lot 52

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Notes: The son of Jean de Foix and Marie d'Orleans, Gaston de Foix was known as 'The Thunderbolt of Italy' for his part in the 16th Century War of the League of Cambrai. Having arrived in Italy as the new commander of French forces in 1511 at the age of 21, Gaston de Foix succeeded in breaking the seige of Bologna and establishing control over Northern Italy within six months. He was killed the following year during the Battle of Ravenna. Many believed that but for his death the war could have taken a very different course.

Both the Bourbons and the Orléans regarded Gaston de Foix as a forbear of their own dynasties, and as such he was a powerful national symbol. Dating from the same period as Barye's work for the garniture de chéminée for the duc de Montpensier (see lots 31 & 34), the Gaston de Foix model reflects his period of interest in the Renaissance Revival.

According to Poletti & Richarme casts, like the present bronze, stamped BARYE are Barye?s own editions cast in his atelier from 1832 with the last stamped casts dating to 1857. The present cast dates to the early 1850s. Another cast of the model is in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.

RELATED LITERATURE
Poletti & Richarme, no. F5, pp. 68-69 & 39; Untamed, no. 46, p. 142